


when you find me let me know ('cause i'm still looking)

by SleeplessAnon



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-22
Updated: 2019-05-22
Packaged: 2020-03-09 10:48:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18915415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SleeplessAnon/pseuds/SleeplessAnon
Summary: in which emma swan learns to grow up, featuring some other people who help make it happenShe gets a few disdainful sniffs from a group of girls at the first table she tries, and one of them tells her, "You can’t sit there, that’s Mary Margaret’s seat." She looks back at them in exasperation (and a small amount of disbelief that a real human child has the name Mary Margaret), but gets up to move anyway.She wanders a bit more, and then, in a moment that seems unimportant but somehow sets in motion the rest of her life, plops down in a seat across from a brown-haired girl from another class, who’s sitting at a table completely by herself.The other girl looks up in suspicion, and, not recognizing Emma, frowns harshly and starts eating faster."I’m Emma," Emma offers, not at all perturbed.





	when you find me let me know ('cause i'm still looking)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so it's been a while since i posted anything...no promises on when this will be updated, but i will say that i don't foresee it being much more than one or two more chapters. school's almost out, so you can probably expect something towards the middle/end of june. again, no promises.
> 
> this chapter is suspiciously lacking in swan queen, but it's endgame i promise. the focus of the fic isn't meant to be the ship though, it's more that i couldn't write emma's story without regina lol 
> 
> hope you enjoy

Emma Swan is seven when she makes her first friend.

Okay, that’s not _exactly_ true. Emma is seven when she makes the first friend she ever wants to _keep._

She’s the new kid again, as always. The revolving door of foster families she’s spent time with has spun for the umpteenth time, and she’s only been with the Andersens for a few days but she’s decided not to get too settled. She has a feeling it’s not going to last, not when Mr. Andersen calls her “Emily” and “Elma” several times and Mrs. Andersen’s smile looks like it’s made of plastic and Toby Andersen stares at her like she’s something nasty stuck to the bottom of his shoe.

So that’s the family situation.

But in any case, it’s not foreign to her, so she doesn’t pay it much mind. The point is, she’s new to school, and no one really knows quite what to make of her. It doesn’t help that Storybrooke is a small town, so everyone already knows each other, and it’s already early November - a good two months into the school year - when she arrives. She spends her first recess by herself, crouched on the side of the playground drawing aimless patterns in the dirt with a stick. When lunchtime arrives, she wanders around helplessly with a lunch tray, looking for an empty spot.

She gets a few disdainful sniffs from a group of girls at the first table she tries, and one of them tells her, “You can’t sit there, that’s Mary Margaret’s seat.” She looks back at them in exasperation (and a small amount of disbelief that a real human child has the name _Mary Margaret),_ but gets up to move anyway.

She wanders a bit more, and then, in a moment that seems unimportant but somehow sets in motion the rest of her life, plops down in a seat across from a brown-haired girl from another class, who’s sitting at a table completely by herself. The other girl looks up in suspicion, and, not recognizing Emma, frowns harshly and starts eating faster.

“I’m Emma,” Emma offers, not at all perturbed.

The girl gives her an angry look that says something like _why are you talking to me,_ and Emma shrugs, thinks, _fair enough,_ and digs into her grilled cheese.

 

She doesn’t find out the girl’s name until later that day, when a boy asks why she was sitting with _Regina Mills,_ like she’s supposed to know or care what that means. She asks anyway, since it’s the first time someone who’s not an adult (and therefore obligated to speak to her) has initiated a conversation with her since she had arrived at Storybrooke Elementary.

“Her mom is in jail,” the boy, whose name is something stupid like Gillian or Killian, whispers to her conspiratorially.

Emma considers this, then shrugs. “So?”

“So?” he parrots back, clearly unsure about how to respond to that. “Jail is...bad. It’s for bad people!”

She nods in agreement. “Yeah,” she says.

Killian’s (William’s?) eyes light up with the realization that Emma must be stupid. “Regina’s _mom_ is in jail,” he repeats, hoping the point will sink in this time.

“Okay,” Emma says, quickly losing interest in this topic of conversation.

Killian gives her a frustrated look, and stomps away without another word. Emma watches him go, unconcerned, and resumes kicking her feet, hands under her thighs, waiting for Mr. Andersen to pick her up.

She’s known, since she was old enough to know anything, that kids can’t control what their parents do.

 

She sits across from Regina the next day as well, and this time she actually pays attention to the girl. She looks normal, with mousy dark brown hair and a pout to her lips and a face that tells exactly what she’s thinking at any given moment. (Right now, for example, her face is telling Emma _go away,_ but Emma’s never been one for doing what she’s told.) In any case, she looks nothing like a criminal, and one of Emma’s foster fathers was one, so she would know.

Regina’s lunch is a neatly packed ham sandwich, a banana, and a juice pack, all of which she’s laid out carefully on top of the brown paper bag. She glances over at Emma’s lunch, and her eyes catch on the pudding cup and stay there for a beat too long, and Emma genuinely has no explanation for what happens next.

She clears her throat, and Regina looks up sharply. “You wanna trade your banana for this pudding?”

Regina stares. “You want a banana instead of pudding?”

Emma absolutely does not, but she shrugs and lies, “I don’t like tapioca.”

Regina eyes her suspiciously for another moment, but relents and grabs the pudding, placing her banana on Emma’s tray in its place. Inexplicably, Emma feels as though she’s won something.

They don’t say anything else, but Regina smiles just a tiny bit at Emma, and Emma positively beams back.

 

“You shouldn’t sit with me,” is the first thing that Regina says to Emma the following day, when she plops herself down across from the brown-haired girl again.

“Why not?” Emma asks around a bite of pizza.

“If you do, the other kids will think you’re like me,” Regina says, not making eye contact.

“What are you like?”

“My mom is in prison.” It’s such a bizarre response that Emma is sure she didn’t hear it right.

Emma pauses, puzzled. “But what are _you_ like?”

Regina stares back, equally confused, and doesn’t seem to have a reply. Finally she says, “I’m like my mom.” It sounds defeated, resigned.

“But _you’re_ not in prison,” Emma counters.

Regina’s brow furrows at this, and she again struggles for an answer.

“Plus, everyone is a mix of their parents. What’s your dad like?”

Regina is silent for a moment, and Emma wonders if she’s stepped on a landmine, but then Regina’s face lights up with a gentle smile. “Daddy is the greatest,” she proclaims. “He’s strong, and good, and kind, and smart, and - and -“

“See?” Emma says, polishing off the pizza. “You’re probably just more like your dad. That’s why you’re not in prison.”

Regina stares at her, incredulous. “How would _you_ know? You don’t even know me.”

“Well, you haven’t proved me wrong yet.”

“I haven’t proved you _right_ either,” Regina says, looking a little miffed. “Your logic makes no sense.”

“Then do it,” Emma says, a challenge in her voice.

“Do what?”

“Prove me right,” she says. “Or wrong,” she adds as an afterthought.

“Fine,” Regina says, petulant. Emma’s not too sure which option she’s aiming for, but she hopes it’s not the latter.

 

In any case, they become friends. It’s surprisingly easy, for all the walls both of them put up. Regina’s never exactly _nice,_ but she’s just warm enough that Emma can’t help but return the small smiles that she occasionally gives. They make a good team, the two of them. Emma is brash and loud and knows how to fight for what she wants (not to mention eager to snap at any bullies that throw hurtful words at them), and Regina is quiet and rational and frankly a little too smart for the second grade, which is why it’s not surprising when the day after parent-teacher conferences, she tells Emma that she’s going straight into the fourth grade next year.

She says it with a furrow in her brow and a scowl on her lips, so Emma asks, “What’s wrong?”

Regina’s eyes meet hers. “I don’t wanna go into the fourth grade,” she says matter-of-factly.

“Why not?” Emma asks. It’s become one of the most common questions that she asks Regina.

She blinks, then rolls her eyes. “I want to be in a class with you. I don’t want to be around a bunch of older kids who don’t get me. Everyone already looks at me weird ‘cause of my mom, and now they’re gonna think I’m - I’m -”

“You’re what? Better than them? Because you totally are,” Emma says, laughing a little. “Who _cares_ what all those other kids think? _I_ think you’re great,” she insists, which makes Regina break out into a grin. “Besides, I -”

She stops herself suddenly, laughter cutting off.

“What?” Regina asks, still smiling.

Emma blinks and looks back at her. “I - I’d do it, ‘cause it means you’re done with school and...learning and all that even sooner,” she lies weakly.

Regina pouts at that. “I _like_ learning,” she mutters.

“Yeah, ‘cause you’re _weird.”_

“ _You’re_ weird,” she snipes back.

From there, the conversation devolves into a “No, _you”_ argument, and Emma inwardly sighs in relief at the change in topic. Sometimes it’s so easy to spend time with Regina that she forgets, forgets that this isn’t permanent, forgets that while Regina wants her to stay, the Andersens are much less enthused about the idea.

In truth, they had sat her down a few days ago and told her that she wasn’t quite the _fit_ they had been looking for, whatever that was supposed to mean. She appreciates their honesty, at least, even if it stings a little. They had even been kind enough to let her finish out the school year here in Storybrooke. She’s pretty sure that it’s not their idea though, and has a lot more to do with the fit she threw to her social worker last time they whisked her out of a home. It had been immature and exactly the kind of thing that drove families away, but it had probably bought her the rest of this year with Regina, so she counts it as a win.

 

Regina invites Emma over for their first sleepover during spring break, and Emma is unsurprised to find that Mr. Mills is everything his daughter thinks of him. He has a warm, kind smile and a gentle disposition that disarms even Emma, who’s always been wary of parents.

She and Regina build a pillow fort in the living room, and Mr. Mills leaves them mostly alone, except to crawl in to bring snacks and eventually dinner, which happens to be the most delicious mac and cheese Emma has ever tasted. When she informs Mr. Mills of this, he breaks into a broad grin and tells her that he’ll make it for her whenever she’d like. Then he ruffles Regina’s hair (despite his daughter’s complaints) and takes the empty dishes out.

The two of them huddle down in the fort, talking about everything and nothing. How school is boring to both of them for the opposite reasons. How Mary Margaret is frankly a ridiculous name but fitting for an equally ridiculous little girl. How recess ought to be at least ten minutes longer, because honestly, how else is Emma going to beat Regina at jumping rope?

Later in the evening, as they’re dozing off, it just slips out.

“I’m leaving next year,” Emma mumbles, curled up in her sleeping bag.

Regina peeks out of her own sleeping bag. “Leaving? Where are you going?” she asks, confused.

“Dunno,” Emma replies. “The Andersens don’t want me to stay with them, though.”

“They don’t? But they’re your parents, aren’t they?”

“Not my real ones. My real ones didn’t want me either. That’s why I was with the Andersens. Because they thought they might want me. But they changed their minds.”

“That’s not fair,” Regina says, perplexed.

“It’s not,” Emma agrees. “But I don’t think I want the Andersens either, anyway.”

“Then what happens to you?”

“I get put with another family. Until they don’t want me anymore, and then I go away again.”

Regina reaches a hand out of her sleeping bag grasping until Emma puts her own into it. “Me and Daddy want you,” she says. “Why don’t you come live with us?”

Emma stares back. “Would you ask him?”

“I would,” Regina says with a soft smile.

Emma smiles back a little, holding Regina’s hand a bit tighter.

 

Mr. Mills doesn’t agree to foster Emma. She’ll later find out it has to do with the complex relationship he has with his wife and the subsequent steps Cora Mills takes to ensure that Henry Mills isn’t “blowing her hard-earned money on some pointless charity case.” He’s apologetic about it, almost to the point of tears, but it doesn’t lessen the blow, and the end of the school year approaches relentlessly.

Regina is angry about it, even if she never says it. She gives her father the cold shoulder until Emma pleads with her to stop, because Mr. Mills is the parent that Emma’s always wished for, and it hurts to see Regina break his heart.

The Andersens have been kinder to her now that she’s not going to be a permanent fixture in their household, and they give her a beautiful leather-bound notebook as a parting gift.

“I hope…” Mrs. Andersen hesitates. “I hope you at least had a few good memories of Storybrooke to write down in here.”

 _Not of you,_ Emma thinks, and says, “Thank you.”

Regina gifts her a bracelet, handmade with colorful string tied in intricate patterns. Her grandmother had helped her make them, she explains, and holds up the matching one on her own wrist.

Emma puts it on and hugs her and wishes for a miracle that would let her stay right here.

She leaves Storybrooke the next morning, a single suitcase packed with her meager belongings and a slip of paper with Regina’s address on it, gripped tight in her pocket.

 

She arrives in Boston, and writes a letter right away.

The new family, the Carrolls, are the hyper-religious type, which means that Emma is consistently sitting uncomfortably in wooden pews, trying not to fall asleep as the old man at the front of the church drones on and on. She fails on multiple occasions, which doesn’t earn any points in her favor.

Despite this, they would ordinarily be a family that Emma would be quite satisfied with, attentive but not too much so, patient enough to tolerate her excitable nature. But she’s seen what a real loving parent is like, and the Carrolls don’t cut it for her.

So she’s broody and unreceptive to their attempts to get to know her, and she spends all her time not at school in her room, writing drafts of letters to Regina. She joins an after school soccer team, mainly so that she’ll have to spend less time at the house, although she finds that she enjoys the exhilaration of running around, of breaking past the enemy team’s defenses, of taking that shot at the goalposts, and of shouting in victory when the ball hits the back of the net. The coach tells her she’s got great potential, and she swells with pride.

So Boston’s not that bad. It’s no Storybrooke, though, and sometimes she looks over at the sidelines and thinks she sees Regina watching, but it’s always some other little brown-haired girl.

Emma checks the mailbox everyday when she gets back from practice, and at least once a week, there’s a letter from Regina in her neat handwriting, detailing her own life in Storybrooke, and the challenges of being the smallest kid in the fourth grade.

She’s made two new friends, Marian and Mal, who don’t judge her for her mother’s actions, and they’ve more or less taken over Emma’s role of fending off the bullies. Emma’s glad for it, but also a little saddened. She’s never _wanted_ someone to remember her so badly, and she’s never been so uneasy to be replaced. But the letters are more than enough of a reassurance that Regina’s still her friend, and she writes back eagerly. She keeps all the letters she receives in a manila envelope that she steals from Mr. Carroll’s study. Regina sometimes sends Polaroids of herself out with her father, grinning a wide gap-toothed grin. These Emma keeps and carefully pastes into the back pages of her notebook, each with a label of the date and location.

Emma doesn’t bother getting close to anyone in Boston. She knows, as usual, that it’s not going to last, and this time she’s aware that it’s partially her fault. She doesn’t make the effort, so she’s not surprised when she comes back one day to see her social worker deep in conversation with the Mr. and Mrs. Carroll at the kitchen table.

She goes upstairs to start packing, and in her notebook, writes down the date, the names of the family members, and the time she stayed there. She adds a few little notes about the family, then she snaps the notebook shut and gets ready to go.

 

She bounces around several more times through the rest of elementary and middle school, but she somehow manages to stay in touch with Regina the whole time. When she turns thirteen, she ends up all the way on the west coast, in Los Angeles.

(She’d rolled her eyes at her social worker, and said, just a touch bitterly, “I guess you’ve run out of families on this side of the country.”

He’d shrugged helplessly and given her the information for her new social worker, who was to meet her at the airport when she arrived.)

Regina has a cell phone now, and Emma has the number memorized, so while she waits to get picked up from the airport, she finds a payphone and calls her up. It’s barely past 8:30 in LA, but it’s approaching midnight in Storybrooke, and she feels a little bad for waking up Regina the day before an exam. Regina, however, is only angry that it had taken so long for Emma to call.

“What was flying like? I’ve always wanted to go on a plane.”

“Pretty cool,” Emma says, like she hadn’t nearly ripped the armrest off the seat when the plane had started down the runway. “The city at night looks really pretty from above.”

“Yeah?” Regina asks with a yawn.

“Sorry, I should let you get back to sleep,” Emma says sheepishly. “I just wanted to let you know that I landed safely.”

“Mmkay,” Regina says, already sounding like she’s falling back asleep.

“Good luck on your test.”

“‘Kay.”

Emma smiles into the phone. “Good night, Regina.”

“Night, Emma.”

 

AOL Instant Messenger is starting to get really popular among her classmates, and it’s installed at the library computers, so she convinces Regina to make an account and talk to her after school.

Even though it’s not the same as a face-to-face conversation, Emma doesn’t have easy access to a phone and it sure beats waiting days or weeks for a response. Regina is in high school now and busier than ever, so their conversations don’t last all that long, and it makes Emma a little anxious. Still, while her classmates have adapted the weird abbreviations and emoticons that come with online interactions, Regina still types out her messages with perfect grammar and punctuation, and Emma can practically hear her voice when she reads the messages.

Now that they’re older, it’s started to sink in that her best friend is a certified genius. Even though she had refused to skip another grade, Regina is taking advanced classes and doing academic extracurriculars that Emma didn’t know existed. ( _Math_ Olympiad? What does that even mean?)

Meanwhile, Emma is...Emma. She struggles in class, lacks motivation to do homework, and even though she still plays soccer wherever she goes, the constant moving means that she tends to lack synergy with the rest of her teammates. Every family she ends up with only makes her miss Regina and her father more, and that, in turn, makes her restless and angry. Hearing about Regina flourishing on the other side of the country makes her almost resentful.

Luckily, it’s easy enough to hide that when Regina can’t see her face or hear her voice. She’s proud of her friend, of course she is, but there’s always a quiet voice at the back of her mind that laments the _unfairness_ of it all. She shoves it down and tells it to shut up. She’s learned to grin and bear by now.

 

High school sucks right out of the gate, and Emma almost immediately falls in with a bad crowd. They’re mostly older, and they smoke and drink and ditch class, and in all honesty Emma doesn’t care for them. But they don’t look at her like some pitiful orphan girl or care about her dismal grades, so she goes along with them for the most part.

She doesn’t tell Regina about them. She doesn’t tell Regina much of anything these days. Cora Mills is out on parole, and determined to “have a role in her daughter’s life.” The way Regina tells it, that just means controlling her every move. Her computer time is limited, and even though she has a phone, Emma doesn’t, and isn’t allowed to use the home phone in her current foster father’s apartment without express permission. And somehow just like that, they’re back to letters that get shorter and further between.

While Regina takes AP classes and prepares for SAT exam, Emma screws up her soccer tryouts and smokes a cigarette for the first time and feels alone in a crowd of teenagers who dress and talk like her. While Regina earns awards and accolades and a 4.7 GPA, Emma drinks too much and loses her virginity to an older boy named Neal who stinks of weed and booze. While Regina joins a group of her classmates on a bus to New York to participate in Model UN, Emma and her friend group ditch class to spray paint obscene images on underpasses and shoplift from local drugstores. Neither of them tell the other about any of it. Their letters dwindle down, and Emma writes more but never sends them.

Emma is bitter and angry and desperate to feel wanted, so when Neal tosses her a helmet and gestures to the back of his motorcycle, she doesn’t think twice about pulling it over her head and hopping on. They’re going for a midnight joyride, he tells her with a boyish grin, to celebrate her finishing her freshman year. His back is wide and warm, and Emma grips his waist tightly as he makes every turn going way too fast, and she can’t help the terrified laughter that escapes her throat as they round another bend. Something about the exhilaration makes her feel so alive that it practically hurts.

(It’s ironic, in a way, that the moment in which Emma feels most alive in her fifteen years is the moment she comes closest to death.)

Neal runs the next red light, and a sleek black sports car strikes them across the bike’s front wheel. It goes flying with a deafening crunch of metal on metal, and Emma loses her grip, thrown several feet away, and she _feels_ her bones snapping under her own weight and the force of the asphalt. Neal’s hands don’t leave the handlebars, though, and the bike goes skidding away with Neal still under it.

Emma watches blearily as the car screeches to a halt, the hood crumpled up like paper, and a woman stumbles out, shouting something that Emma can’t hear over the ringing in her ears. She strains to see the pile of wreckage that she knows Neal must be under, but she’s rapidly losing consciousness.

She blinks, and when she opens her eyes again it’s five days and four surgeries later, and Neal is dead.

 

Recovery takes a long time. It's almost two months before she gets out of the wheelchair, and even then she’s going to be on crutches for at least another two. The doctors inform her it’s a miracle she’s going to be able to walk again. She goes to physical therapy every day, and, at her social worker’s insistence, talks to a counselor once a week to work through the veritable treasure trove of psychological issues that have been building up inside her. It’s cathartic, certainly. To just _talk._ And to know someone is listening. But to actually think about what it means for her, to think about beginning to heal her mind along with her body, well. She’ll save that for another time, thank you very much.

She ends up in a group home after she leaves the hospital. She’s been in one or two in the past, but somehow as she hobbles over the threshold on her crutches, she knows. She’s almost sixteen, and she knows. This is the end of the line for her. There’s not going to be an adoption, a happy ending for her childhood. This is where she’s going to be till she ages out, and then she’s on her own. In the back of her mind, she thinks she might have already known that from the day she left Storybrooke.

She gives herself just a moment to wallow in her self pity, then, with the help of Ingrid, the caretaker of the home, makes her way upstairs to her new bedroom.

It’s a smaller home, so there are only three other girls living there. Her roommate, a brunette named Lily, has the same “troublemaker” look that Emma recognizes when she looks in the mirror. She walks with a lightness in her step and a mischief in her eyes that draws Emma in instantly, and she can’t help but feel a sort of camaraderie with her.

The other two girls who live across the hall from them, Ruby and Mulan, are a year younger than Emma, sullen teens who don’t talk much. Still, she recognizes herself in them as well, and she wonders how many kids like her exist, trapped in a bizarre limbo and slipping through the cracks of a broken system. She offers them a tentative smile and wave, and nearly topples over as her crutch falls out from under her armpit. Mulan rolls her eyes a little and Ruby scoffs under her breath, but there’s no real bite to their actions, and Emma suspects they’ll get along just fine.

There’s not much to unpack, as usual. She’s putting away the last of her clothes when something catches her eye at the bottom of the luggage - an orange manila envelope tied shut with a red string. With a jolt, she recognizes it and pulls it out, carefully untying the string and letting the contents spill out over her desk. The colorful stationary jumps out at her, Regina’s neat, loopy script scrawled across it.

Years worth of letters are laid out in front of her, and she feels an odd sort of warmth as she picks one up and reads it. It’s about a trip to an aquarium with her father, complete with little drawings of fish and other ocean life. She flips through the rest of them, memories flooding back, and it’s oddly bittersweet. She pulls out the leather notebook, cover now weathered and soft from age, and peeks at the photos of Regina, and wishes she were in them too. Taped into one of the pages is the bracelet Regina had given her on the day she’d left. It had worn down and fallen off at some point, and she still remembers trying her hardest not to cry when it did. Still, the letters make her smile, and it’s the first time she’s really thought about Regina in the past few months. And she sits back and lets herself _remember,_ and there’s something like tears in the back of her throat, although she doesn’t cry, hasn’t cried in years, not since the day she left Storybrooke.

Under Regina’s letters are several other letters, the ones that Emma never sent. She reads those too, winces a little at the harsh, angry words. She sighs, leaning her head back and staring at the ceiling, and wonders about Regina. Where is she now? What is she doing? She thinks about what she would say to Regina if she saw her now, and wonders what Regina would say back. And with that, she tears a sheet of paper out of her notebook and starts to write.

The letter ends up being pretty short, just under a page long. It’s not much, a simple apology for losing touch, and then some questions - How’s school? Are you still hanging out with Mal and Marian? What do you do for fun these days? There are so many things she doesn’t know anymore, but she doesn’t know how to ask, so she cuts the letter short, folds it up and tucks it in an envelope, and scribbles out the only address she knows by heart on the back. Ingrid gives her some stamps for the postage, and she slips the letter into the mailbox before she can change her mind.

She gets a reply a week later in the form of her own letter, stamped with glaring red text reading _RETURN TO SENDER,_ and she stops wondering after that.

 

Lily is a year older, but she’s repeating sophomore year after a stint in juvie, so they’re in the same grade. She’s even closer to being out of the system that Emma is, but a lot less bothered by it. It’s freedom, she tells Emma. To Emma, though, it feels like a terrifying leap into a pit with no bottom. Lily just laughs and tells her that she’s thinking too much about it.

Ingrid drives all four of them to school together, a prestigious all-female charter school that probably only lets them enroll because the state cuts them a bigger check for having “underprivileged students.” Since it’s her first day, Ingrid brings her to the headmistress’ office while the other three girls scatter off to class. Ingrid gives her a supportive grin and a thumbs up before she leaves Emma at the door. Emma smiles weakly back. Authority figures are not her forte.

The office is dimly lit, with a wide mahogany desk taking up most of the space. It’s backlit by the half closed blinds on the window on the far wall. The floor is a dark maroon carpet, and Emma is nervous to even put her shoes on it. Shelves line the walls, packed with nondescript books that have fancy gold lettering on their spines. A girl around her age is sitting quietly by the door, and the headmistress is seated at the desk, fingers laced under her chin, elbows propped on the table.

Headmistress Lang looks almost exactly like what Emma pictures a headmistress would look like - dark hair streaked with grey wrapped into a tight bun, glasses that point up at the corners, and an impossibly sharp looking pantsuit. She is also exactly as stern and no-nonsense as Emma would expect.

She looks down her nose at Emma, in her ratty jeans and backpack hanging off one shoulder, balancing precariously on her crutches.

“Miss Swan,” she says, eyes narrowing. “Welcome to the Woodridge Academy for Girls.” She taps a finger on what is presumably Emma’s (extensive) file. “I’ve been reading the information provided to me by your previous school.” Her eyes get a hard glint to them. “I’ll have you know that we will not tolerate misbehavior of any kind, and regardless of your...unfortunate circumstances, you are no exception.”

She takes this moment to slide a small book across the desk. “This is the student handbook. Commit it to memory.” Emma nods and picks it up, fumbling to balance as she tucks it into her backpack. The headmistress points to the girl by the door. “Elsa over there will give you a tour of the school and help you get to your classes.”

As Emma turns to follow Elsa, Headmistress Lang stops her again. “One more thing, Miss Swan. I understand that you are currently living with Miss Page. I recommend you keep better company while at school if you intend to stay.”

Emma has to fight not to roll her eyes. _As if I can choose who I live with,_ she thinks, and says, “I will, ma’am.” Elsa leads her out the door and to her first class of the day.

 

She’s making an _effort_ this time, truly, and there’s no real reason for it, other than that she’s tired of feeling like a failure. So she sits in boring classes and listens to teachers ramble and takes notes and goes through the motions. She even talks to teachers after class to ask for help, and it’s so weird to be remembered by a teacher for something other than being a troublemaker. She kind of hates it a little, but she minds it less as time goes on. She’s not a star student, by any means, but she no longer has the report card of a delinquent. She even gets a few As here and there.

Lily teases her about it, of course. She calls her a teacher’s pet, but she says it with an easy grin that Emma can’t be mad at. Lily’s making an effort, too, in her own way. She still slacks off and doesn’t care much for anything, but Emma has convinced her not to ditch class, insisting that Lily is her only real friend at school, which is sort of true. Her classmates don’t really ostracize her the way they do Lily, but there’s a certain guilt by association that Emma can’t really seem to avoid. And it’s not like her own record is spotless either, so she can’t exactly fault them for their judgement.

In any case, the two of them _get_ each other. Their lives run parallel, and Emma knows what Lily’s feeling most of the time, because Emma’s feeling it too. They don’t filter themselves around each other, and they don’t say a lot because they don’t have to. It’s a kind of relationship Emma never thought she’d have with anyone.

That’s probably why she finds herself pressed up against the inside of a stall in an empty bathroom, Lily’s mouth over hers, bodies pressed tightly together. Her body thinks it’s sexy, but her mind is screaming about the toilet right behind Lily.

“This is so gross,” she grumbles, chest heaving. “We’re _not_ doing it in here, Lily, I swear to god.”

Lily laughs breathlessly against Emma’s cheek as she fumbles for the zipper on Emma’s skirt. “Not sanitary enough for you, your majesty?”

“If I get hepatitis, I’m going to murder you,” Emma responds as the bell rings. Lily groans and presses her forehead into the crook of Emma’s neck.

“Are you kidding,” she mutters.

Emma just laughs, smoothing out her skirt. “C’mon, if you come to class with me, maybe you’ll get lucky later.”

“Maybe?” Lily replies, raising an eyebrow.

Emma raises an eyebrow right back. “I guess you’re gonna have to find out, aren’t you?”

Lily sighs, but she’s smiling now. “I guess I am.” And she lets Emma lead her by the hand out of the bathroom.

 

They pass the time together in quiet ways. Lily strums her guitar and sings nonsense lyrics as Emma lays on her stomach on the bed scribbling away at her homework. They sneak out together, late at night, with blankets and snacks and hike up the hill just outside the house to stargaze. They slip under the covers together, hands linked and limbs tangled up, sometimes in gentle intimacy but more often because Emma’s nightmares keep her awake at night.

Emma doesn’t know what to call it, this strange warmth. She’s not sure she would dare to call it love. But it’s an understanding, a bond that she never had with Neal, or Regina, or _anyone_ and she knows that Lily is special.

It seems to follow naturally, then, that Emma would lose that too.

Lily ages out of the system the summer before they start senior year. Ingrid insists that she’s welcome to stay in the group home and finish high school, but Lily says that she has a former foster brother living in New York now that’s offered her a job at his nonprofit. With no interest in school and no goals for the future, Lily jumps on the opportunity. Ingrid frets and fusses, but Lily’s mind is made up, and Emma broods for the whole week as she starts to pack up.

“Come on, Swan, don’t pout at me like that,” Lily says with an apologetic smile as she messily folds up a sweater and tosses it into her luggage. “August says you’re welcome to join once you’re out of the system too.”

Emma frowns back, arms crossed. “Wouldn’t it make more sense for you to at least finish high school?”

Lily scoffs. “Have you seen my grades? I’m not even guaranteed to graduate at this point, and I’m not doing any more school than I have to. I’d rather get out there and do some real work, and go back and get my GED if I have to.”

Emma plops down on a chair, swinging her legs with her hands tucked under her thighs. _But I would be there,_ she thinks, and says, “If you say so.” It’s sulky and childish, but there’s a note of resignation in it, and Lily’s smile softens into something sympathetic. She pulls Emma in for a light kiss on the cheek.

“I’ll leave you my number, okay? You’re always welcome to come see me.”

Emma doesn’t say anything back, and Lily leaves the following morning. She waves out the window of the cab as it drives off, and Emma just watches.

 

Her senior year of high school is uneventful. She keeps a low profile, not speaking to many people other than Mulan and Ruby, who have been more sympathetic since Lily left. A new girl moves into Emma’s room, and she’s so quiet and nondescript that Emma doesn’t even bother talking to her.

Her grades stay about the same, and she talks to her counselors about applying to college. She’s not exactly top of her class, but it turns out the college admissions officers are suckers for a good sob story, and Emma’s life has pretty much been a nonstop one of those. Her status as a ward of the state gives her enough financial aid to afford applying so she sends out no less than 20 applications and crosses her fingers.

The first dozen come back in thin envelopes, rejection written in neat, overly apologetic text. Emma’s been expecting as much, but it doesn’t do much for the disappointment. She tells herself it doesn’t matter, anyway.

Two more rejection letters later, Emma has all but given up - until a letter from Boston University arrives. The envelope is big and heavy, and Emma just about throws up when a smiling Ingrid hands it over to her.

It’s a bizarre and surreal experience, to be sure. Emma Swan is going to college.

 

About a week before graduation, she has her final session with Archie. She kind of likes Archie, to be honest. At the very least, he’s more genuine than any of the other adults that talk to her, even if it is his job.

When she steps into his office, he glances up with a mischievous grin and stands up himself. At her raised eyebrow, he chuckles, plucking his car keys off a hook by the door. “Come on, we’re going on a little field trip.”

Emma frowns, confused, but follows anyway. He’s occasionally taken her on walks around the area - her mind sometimes works better with a little fresh air - but he’s never driven her anywhere before. Still, she figures she’ll go with it - it’s the last session, after all.

They drive for about thirty minutes out of the city and pull up in a large dirt lot. Emma stiffens as she glances around, and the sound of rumbling engines reaches her ears. It’s a motorcycle track. It’s not especially fancy - what with being out in the desert and all. A simple dirt loop, flat and open, with several bikes making their way around it.

“Archie -” she starts.

“Now just hear me out, Emma,” he says, parking the car and holding up his palms placatingly.

“Have you ever heard the phrase ‘throwing someone in the deep end?’” Emma glares at him. She’s okay in cars, mostly out of necessity, although she had one or two nervous breakdowns on the first few cars rides out of the hospital. No biggie. Still, she flinches pretty much any time a vehicle roars past a little too fast, and her heart rate picks up when she sees a motorcycle coming down the street. So she’s not exactly in a perfect place.

“I know, I know,” he says, smiling apologetically. Emma’s glare doesn’t fade. “Listen, Emma. We’ve been talking for almost three years now. We’ve made a lot of progress, you know? I’ve heard a lot about your life, your feelings. And I’ve said it before, and you’ve agreed with me, that a lot of your negative emotions come from a feeling of helplessness - that you feel frustrated about your lack of control over your own life and the things that happen to you.”

“Right,” Emma says, feeling a little sick about where this is going.

“So I’m just saying, this is an opportunity to put yourself in control. As the driver, not the passenger. Obviously I’m not going to force you to do anything. But I wanted you to have the choice. Once you’re off to college, there isn’t going to be a lot that I can do for you. So I wanted to leave you with an experience that would give you the boost you needed to take the next steps forward.” He gives her an honest smile, and Emma stares back out the window, at the rows of bikes lined up on the other side of the lot. Archie keeps silent and doesn’t say anything else.

After sitting like that for several minutes, Emma heaves out a sigh and unbuckles her seat belt, opening the door. She pretends not to see the grin that spreads across Archie’s face.

An older man with thinning black hair and a beer belly comes out from the small building, shielding his eyes against the sun with his hand. Archie waves enthusiastically. “That’s Mr. Flores,” he tells her. “I came out here to meet him and make sure everything was good to go last week.”

Emma just nods politely at him as he approaches.

“Mr. Flores, this is Emma, the one I was telling you about.”

The man gives her a broad smile. “Welcome, Emma,” he says. “I understand you are a little...nervous about riding my bikes.”

“Shit-scared is probably a better word for it,” Emma replies, and is almost impressed that her voice doesn’t waver at all.

Mr. Flores lets out a deep guffaw, patting her lightly on the shoulder. “Well, I hope by the time you leave today, you’ll be saving up for a bike of your own,” he says with a grin. “Everyone who goes for a ride out here comes back with the biggest smile on their face, even the ones who go in ‘shit-scared.’”

He leads her to the racks of bikes, hands her a helmet, and shows her the controls on the bike. It’s pretty straightforward, all things considered: there’s a switch to start the engine and a lever on the right handlebar for the brakes. “Just twist the throttle here to accelerate,” Mr. Flores instructs. “These bikes are modified, see,” he explains. “They’re only used on the track, not exactly road-worthy, since a lot of people who come out here without bikes of their own don’t have the proper licenses for it.” He grins sheepishly. “It’s not strictly legal,” he admits. “But I guarantee it’s quite safe and controlled.”

Emma gives Archie a sidelong look, and he replies with a helpless shrug. With a sigh, Emma glances back down at the bike and steels her nerves. In one quick motion, she swings a leg over the seat and flicks the switch to start the engine. The bike purrs to life beneath her and she immediately flicks the engine back off, every muscle in her body rigid with anxiety. Both Archie and Mr. Flores have taken a step back, watching silently. She sits still a moment more, knuckles white on the handlebars. Then, with shaking fingers, switches the engine on again.

Broken bits of memories flash under her closed eyelids as she grits her teeth and tries to breathe. The seat rumbles under her, and for just a moment, she’s stuck in the split second before impact, and time stops. All she can hear are her own breaths, coming out short and labored, and Neal’s heartbeat against her own chest. And then she opens her eyes and she’s in the open desert, sun blazing down and her grip isn’t on Neal’s waist, but on the handlebars of the bike and her fingers are trembling, blessed air filling up her lungs and she twists the throttle -

And she’s off, nothing but the long, looping track ahead of her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> can you tell that i know nothing about motorcycles lol
> 
> there's swan queen coming i swear


End file.
